


Come Along Now

by hoodieandjeanqueen



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: But i swear anyone that's going to die has been there, F/F, M/M, Martin is baby but also... powerful, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Tagging character death and violence as a precaution, Web Martin Blackwood, as he should be, done that, i just have a lot of emotions about web martin, its gonna be a slow burn, since it is the magnus archives, strap in lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22168630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoodieandjeanqueen/pseuds/hoodieandjeanqueen
Summary: Jon picked up the newest tape to show up on his desk. In the past few months, at least one tape shows up every week. At first the tapes had seemed disturbing but random, leading him to believe it was a prank from someone in the office. Tim had teased him for being a skeptic since he first was hired to The Magnus Archives. But the more he listened to, the more connections he was able to make, and there were certainly many unexplainable things in these tapes.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker, eventual - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 82





	1. Step 1: The Tapes

**Author's Note:**

> I've had ideas for this story for months, so I figured it was about time to start writing it out. No promises for how regular the updates will be.

Jon picked up the newest tape to show up on his desk. In the past few months, at least one tape shows up every week. At first the tapes had seemed disturbing but random, leading him to believe it was a prank from someone in the office. Tim had teased him for being a skeptic since he first was hired to The Magnus Archives. But the more he listened to, the more connections he was able to make, and there were certainly many unexplainable things in these tapes.

He inserted the tape into the tape recorder and began to listen to Gertrude’s voice, pulling out the notes he had started to put together on the mysterious tapes. The recording began as usual. She introduced the witness and began to read the statement, a rather dull story from a WWI soldier. He was trying to figure out which “Entity” that Gertrude often talked about this statement belonged to, when a soft knock and a softer voice interrupts hers.

“Tea?” The new voice asks, to which a snort that could almost be considered fond seemed to come from Gertrude.

“That’ll be fine, M-” The door to Jon’s apartment is thrown open, with enough force to shake the glass set into the top of the door. Elias comes striding in, looking down right furious. Jon quickly pauses the tape and sits up straighter, unsure of what he did to make his boss so angry.

“Can I help you Elias?”

“Where did you find this tape?” His eyes burning holes into him.

The truth comes spilling out of Jon before he can even think to lie, “it was sitting on my desk this morning.”

“It was in my office, how on earth did it just ‘appear’ on your desk?” He took the tape out of the recorder, causing a rush of anger strong enough to cut through the fear to go through Jon.

“I have no idea, sometimes tapes just appear on my desk. I just assumed they were part of a prank or that you had sent them to me.” The words tumble out of his mouth, bled clean of the anger or fear that he felt.

Slowly anger bleeds out of Elias’s face and is replaced with one of stoney understanding. He nods slowly, “If you find any more of these tapes, I want you to tell me immediately.”

“Do you know who is leaving these?”

“I have no idea.” He’s not sure if it’s the look in his eyes, or just a gut feeling telling him that Elias was lying, but he knew that he was.

“Okay, I’ll let you know if any more show up.” He nods again distractedly, and grabs the tape on the way out the door, much to Jon’s disappointment. As he watches Elias’s back retreat he feels a plan forming. He had to tell him if any more tapes appeared, but wasn’t it the archivist’s job to research?

Elias marched angrily out of The Institute, making his way to a nearby cafe, knowing the person he was angry with would know that his little plan was found out and where to meet him. As he expected, he found him at a small corner table. He had to look over the room a few times, as his eyes glazed over him, but he knew how to push past that by now. At the table sat a rather large man, both tall and quiet round, despite this no one seemed to have noticed him. Which was rather lucky considering the spiders crawling across his clothes and hair. He made his way over and pulled out a chair to sit down, not surprised to see the hot cup of tea waiting with his name on it, “Martin.”

“Hello Elias, what a pleasant coincidence to see you here.” Both of them knew he was lying, just as both knew he wouldn’t be called on it. His voice was quiet, as it had always been. As it was on that tape before he had managed to stop Jon from learning far too much, far too soon. “What brings you here?”

“I’m on to your game, you have no idea what you’re meddling with.” While normally he would take a less direct approach, but to do so with an avatar of the Web was dangerous, much less an avatar as powerful as Martin has become.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He took a long sip from the cup in front of him while maintaining eye contact. A large, brown spider crawls its way onto the back of his had, and despite his best efforts, he can’t help but feel the spider was trying to make eye contact as well.

“You’ve been sneaking very important tapes to my archivist.”

He lets out a laugh that lets Elias know he doesn’t find anything about the conversation amusing. “I haven’t been in the Institute for many years, Jonah, you know that. Besides, your new placeholder doesn’t seem to be much of an Archivist at all.”

He twitches at the name, but says nothing. “ And we both know you don’t need to enter the Institute.”

He seems to study him for a minute before letting out a drawn out sigh, “Oh believe what you want. It doesn’t really affect me.” Elias, seeing that he wasn’t going to get a confession from it, and knowing better than to try and draw one from him. “One more thing,” He calls out as he starts to leave, cause Elias to turn back to him. “Just remember this Jonah, as much as you all seem determined to keep secrets from each other, The Eye will only allow it for so long.” With that he smiles in a way that sends shivers down his spine, despite the fact it’s the same sweet smile he’s always had. As Elias makes his way back towards the Institute, he wonders if Martin’s eyes had always been that sharp.

Martin picked up his tea as he watched the bastard leave. Now that the tapes had been found out, he couldn’t keep interfering so directly. But, he thought smugly, Jonah had greatly underestimated this new archivist, especially after he had a little help. For now he could bide his time and wait for the right time to move to the next step of his plan.


	2. Step 2: Save The Idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly he should have seen something like this coming. He knew Jonah was an idiot, and while he thought the new archivist had potential, he had seen that he wasn’t as cautious or intimidating as… the last archivist.

Honestly he should have seen something like this coming. He knew Jonah was an idiot, and while he thought the new archivist had potential, he had seen that he wasn’t as cautious or intimidating as… the last archivist. He enters The Institute through the tunnels, letting his little friends feast on their heart’s content on any worms that got into his way.

He could feel Jane’s presence above him, the air thick and sticky. While he had no personal grudge against her, he never much liked The Corruption or it’s avatars. He knows she can feel him coming closer as well, but she either doesn’t care enough to turn her attention to him or thought he was there to watch The Institute fall like many others that were hiding farther back in the tunnels. And while he would love to watch The Eye and everyone associated with it go down, he knew that this attack was playing right into Jonah’s plan. He and Annabelle had a guess as to what his plan was, especially given how smug he seems about it, but if he allows the new little archivist to die it would disrupt their own plans, as well as displease her. Annabelle felt that he would make a good addition to The Web and seemed fond of him, and while Martin has his doubts, he does love angerring Jonah.

He climbed through the entrance into the Institute and dusts off his pant legs. He doesn’t have to look around to know that nothing in the archives has changed in the years since he had been here. He makes his way towards where Jane had the archivist and one of his assistants hiding in a room. He nearly laughs at the incompetence in front of him. He knew he was new, but to be this ignorant after a year only further made him convinced he had the right idea of the new archivist. As he steps into the room, she turns to look at him, worms wiggling under and out of her skin.

“Oh, hello there! Have you come to help?” Her smile sent shivers across his skin, only growing wider as he nods. “Wonderful! I’ve almost made it past this pesky door.”

“One small problem with that,” He steps beside her as she turns back towards the door, smiling pleasantly but with something decidedly unpleasant in his eyes. “I’m not here to help you.”

Jon clutches his leg, keeping his eyes closed as Tim moves anxiously between hovering over him and trying to see out the small window set into the door. “Something’s happening out there.”

“Yes Tim,” He grits his teeth to keep from screaming as he feels the worms digging deeper into his leg. “There’s thousands of worms out there trying to get in to eat us. I would have thought you’d noticed by now.”

Tim gives him an annoyed look, “No, there’s a man with her now.”

He thumps his head against the wall, “Great.”

“Wait, he’s… Oh god.”

“What?” He looks up at him, watching horror grow on his face. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he could hear the screaming. Everything inside him felt too exhausted and pained to make room for more fear.

“You don’t want to know.” He steps back from the door quickly, then crosses to Jon, trying to haul him up. “Shit, he’s coming! Come on! We have to get out of here!”

“And go where?” Jon lets out a muffled yell as weight is put onto his leg, “In case you forgot, we’ve been trapped in here for 20 minutes.”

“Jon, listen, we can’t let him find us.” If Tim had seemed scared at the worms, whatever he had seen had pushed him straight into panic. It’s surprising he’s even trying to save him, and not just leaving him to buy himself time.

“We’ll I can’t go anywhere-” The doorknob starts rattling, only causing the man to spiral more.

“You have to!”

“No, Tim look at me. I. Can’t. Move.” He slumps back, “You aren’t hurt. I’m sure you can outrun whatever he’ll do. Just go.”

“I’m not leaving you to that!” As he tries to pull him up again the door swings open. Tim stays crouched over him as a man enters. The man is tall, nearly meeting Tim’s height, and more broad but Tim definitely had muscle on him. Despite his size, he had a rather pleasant smile on his face and carried himself carefully. Jon didn’t see what about the man had terrified Tim so much until he was able to see his eyes. There was a look that said something in the man had broken long ago and that he had no intentions of fixing it.

Tim stood very suddenly, putting himself between the two of them. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” He tilts his head, as he does Jon realized that his blond hair wasn’t streaked with gray, but instead seemed to have webs through it. After that thought processes, he sees at least a dozen spiders starting to make their way on the doorframe. He scrambles back before hissing in pain.

The sound brings the man’s attention back to him, and he starts to step towards him before Tim steps between them again. “I saw what you did out there. What do you want from us?”

“From the two of you? Nothing.” A spider settles on his cheek, and Jon can feel his brain starting to shut down from everything that’s happened in the past hour.

“You expect me to believe that bullshit?”

“Not at all.” He steps past him and Jon can see the anger on Tim’s face before he flinches as the man leans down towards him and holds his hand a few centimeters from his face. “Come here, you.” All he can do is look at him in confusion before he feels the spider crawl off his face and sees it move onto the man’s hand. After he sets it on his shoulder he looks Jon up and down, then steps back and looks at Tim. “I suggest you get him out of here soon. No doubt your boss will have some stupid plan that will likely kill you both.”

“You know Elias?” Is the only question he can think to ask.

“Oh good! You’re not completely in shock yet.” He turns back to him, then looks expectantly at Tim. He moves to Jon, careful not to get too close to the man, and picks him up carefully. “Follow me, if you’d like.”

“Who are you?” He tries not to blush at the position he’s been put in, but there’s really no dignified way to be carried princess style by a coworker. 

“So full of questions. Well, I guess I expected this much.” He doesn’t even bother looking back to make sure they follow as he starts walking. He leads them to a trap door, not even hesitating before going into the darkness behind it.

“Should we…?” Tim looks at him, then to the door hesitantly.

“I’m not sure he’s really giving us a choice… And whatever he did to Jane, she’s gone now.” He nods before making his way after the man, whispering apologies every time he stumbles in the dark and nearly drops Jon. Eventually they find themselves in a dimly lit room.

“You both should be safe here until rescue crews find you.” The man smiles at him, then turns to go back into the tunnels.

“Wait! You can’t just leave!” Something inside him twists at the thought of letting him leave without getting answers.

“And why not?” He slowly turns back, the sinister look back in his eyes. He hadn’t noticed its absence until it returned so suddenly.

“Who are you? Why did you help us? I don’t understand any of this.”

“Do you really need to?”

“What?”

“That’s the issue with you avatars of the beholding, you think you need to know the answer to everything, but you never ask the right questions.”

“What?”

The man sighs and shakes his head tiredly, “I don’t have time to tell you how the sun rises and sets, or any other stupidly obvious things.”

“Just answer three questions?”

“Three?”

“Just three.” He pleads. He can feel Tim looking at him with concern, but he can’t explain why he can’t stop.

“Fine, make them count.”

“Why did you help us?”

The smile slowly starts forming on his face again, reminding Jon of a spider creeping along its web, “Let’s call it a favor to a friend, and a disservice to a bastard.”

“Elias is your friend?” The man laughs like it was the funniest thing he’s heard in years, before abruptly cutting it off.

“Absolutely not. Last question, little archivist.”

He curses himself for wasting a question, then takes a moment to think. “Where can I find you again?”

“What?!” Tim nearly drops him.

“Now there’s an interesting question!” The smile is back, and he actually seems proud of him. “Let’s see… There’s a lovely little cafe only a block away. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it. I’m there quite often, though I think you’ll need to heal from those wounds before you go walking London. Speaking of… Hm, let’s see.”

He seems to think a bit before pulling something out of his pocket, it takes Jon a minute to realize what it is.

“A corkscrew?”

“We’ll there’s a much easier way to pull those worms out, but I doubt you’d prefer it.” The spider on his shoulder seems to perk up, and Jon flinches back instinctually.

“Ah, no, I’d rather not.”

The man shrugs and tosses the corkscrew over, “Suit yourself.” And with that he starts to turn away. As he’s almost out the door, he looks over his shoulder at them, “Since you didn’t ask absolutely awful questions, I’ll give you a free answer to an earlier one. My name’s Martin.”

And with that he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a surge of inspiration so take another chapter.


End file.
